'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website

[Stephen Palmer]

I'm not making an argument to support theft, I'm saying that maybe we haven't really accepted that pure information has value in the same way a physical object has. And that lack of deep connection to intellectual property allows dissonant behavior in otherwise moral people.

I think the corporations who are currently exploiting data in every way possible have accepted it, but that individuals haven't. We are way behind them, and they are extracting what they can from us while they can.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Someone who steals a book on online would not consider going into a bookshop and snatching a book, yet they somehow convince themselves that one of these behaviours is acceptable.

The only reason they would not consider it would be the risk of being caught.

But I wonder if for some people there is a psychological difference between a physical object and a bit stream. To me the book book is just the bits. Tree books are just an obsolete technology, like LPs.

 

[AlexH]

I think there is also a problem of people truly wrapping their minds around the idea that something that isn't physical can truly have value. Anyone younger than 60 is comfortable with the idea that a mix tape is a convenience, not theft. In our minds the book has value because it was printed, bound and shipped. To us, the words come free when you buy the binding. The infinite fidelity of cloned digital media does not fit the paradigm.

I haven't got a handle of that. I'm really disappointed when favourite albums are not released on CD, for example. I do buy more e-books than physical books though, just because they don't take up any physical space.

 

[Parson]

There is a difference in a lot of people's psyches between material and immaterial when it comes to what is considered stealing. For example when I came to the church I served for 25 years it was common practice to photocopy the music for the choir to sing. I had to say, and I had to say it quite strongly that photocopying music was stealing from the authors of the music just like stealing the sheet music from a music store would be stealing. I pointed out that if I laid 35 cents on the copy machine on Sunday it would still be there the next Sunday. We had very honest people in our church. But somehow it was OK to take that amount and more from the people who wrote and published the music. I think that if you are a laboring man or woman you understand material value, but ideas like air should be free.

 

[Onyx]

There is a difference in a lot of people's psyches between material and immaterial when it comes to what is considered stealing. For example when I came to the church I served for 25 years it was common practice to photocopy the music for the choir to sing. I had to say, and I had to say it quite strongly that photocopying music was stealing from the authors of the music just like stealing the sheet music from a music store would be stealing. I pointed out that if I laid 35 cents on the copy machine on Sunday it would still be there the next Sunday. We had very honest people in our church. But somehow it was OK to take that amount and more from the people who wrote and published the music. I think that if you are a laboring man or woman you understand material value, but ideas like air should be free.

How would you have felt if you placed the original sheet music in an overhead projector so the whole choir could read it at once?

 

[Parson]

Same difference. We did project a lot music but we only projected music we had that was allowed by the Christian Copyright that we purchased each year. This organization collects the data about who uses what and pays the appropriate parties.

 

[Onyx]

Same difference. We did project a lot music but we only projected music we had that was allowed by the Christian Copyright that we purchased each year. This organization collects the data about who uses what and pays the appropriate parties.

Good. I wasn't doubting you, just illustrating how thinking about copyrighted material is so weird unless you completely ignore the media.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

See also the purpose and activities of the ALCS.

 

[Foxbat]

It's worth keeping in mind that attempting to prevent theft of physical or digital products often ends up alienating the legitimate customer so some thought has to be given on how it's done.

The other day, I went into a shop to buy some razors, only to find a steel cable laced through all the packs and padlocked to the display stand. My reaction was bugger this and I went elsewhere to spend my money. The shop can give me all the sob stories it wants but I'm simply not going to put up with being inconvenienced in this manner when I'm a legitimate customer. Same applies to digital media. I've stopped buying certain software (mostly games admittedly) because I can't be arsed with the copy protection.

 

[Parson]

It's worth keeping in mind that attempting to prevent theft of physical or digital products often ends up alienating the legitimate customer so some thought has to be given on how it's done.

It is indeed worth thinking about. But the only way it works to keep things that are easily grabbed in the open is if something like 99+ percent of people will be honest about paying for the things that they pick up. And if those who do pay are willing to pay a premium to pay for those who take without paying. ---- This is why there are so many stores in very poor areas where the only one who can reach the merchandise is the clerk. -- When we are talking about books and music, especially digital, the clerk thing can't work. Which brings us full circle to where we were before, how do you deal with pirates.

 

[Foxbat]

It is indeed worth thinking about. But the only way it works to keep things that are easily grabbed in the open is if something like 99+ percent of people will be honest about paying for the things that they pick up. And if those who do pay are willing to pay a premium to pay for those who take without paying. ---- This is why there are so many stores in very poor areas where the only one who can reach the merchandise is the clerk. -- When we are talking about books and music, especially digital, the clerk thing can't work. Which brings us full circle to where we were before, how do you deal with pirates.

It's a pity we can't have a digital clerk.

 

[SilentRoamer]

It is a sound point, Onyx, though I'd reiterate my earlier post that the most important shift won't be technological but cultural. The idea that theft is ok because it's being framed as giving the poor access to books is what needs defeating.

I'm not making an argument to support theft, I'm saying that maybe we haven't really accepted that pure information has value in the same way a physical object has. And that lack of deep connection to intellectual property allows dissonant behavior in otherwise moral people.

It's not theft though is it - you can't steal something which is infinitely reproducible. Theft - by current definition means you have to deprive someone of the ability to sell a product or service. In the case of downloading ebooks - this is copyright infringement, there is no denial of products/services to sell - only a potential loss in the form of the downloader.

It's an important distinction to make in the digital world as the ubiquity of online interactions ever increases. There won't be a technical solution to this - any solution will necessarily come with a way to open the digital lock. I once had to break DRM on a device because I had to replace a Hard Drive - it wasn't easy but it didn't even take a day to find the right program to do it.

As someone who works in the IT sector, and I mean no offence to this, but the young kids just don't think the same way as older generations, they see anything online as public domain, paywalls have gradually started to disappear, immediate access to content is all but expected - just look at Youtube if you want some to direct some ire. The problem is that this culture shift shows no signs of going anywhere, the genie is out of the bottle and there will be no going back to the way before.

The younger generations really don't view the internet in the same way as older generations - obviously just talking from anecdotal evidence and my own experiences, although I do consider them to be reasonably well informed.

Also as anyone who knows my book buying habits and collections - I don't condone copyrighting material, though I don't condemn it as theft.

 

[Ursa major]

It's not theft though is it - you can't steal something which is infinitely reproducible. Theft - by current definition means you have to deprive someone of the ability to sell a product or service. In the case of downloading ebooks - this is copyright infringement, there is no denial of products/services to sell - only a potential loss in the form of the downloader.

It's as if the legal definition of theft had been created before anyone knew about the internet and the ability to copy things without the use of materials in the "real world".

Can I suggest that, while "copyright infringement" may seem, to you, to be a more accurate term for what is happening in a technical sense, it is, in reality, no more than a euphemism for taking something without the consent of the owner. (I'm reminded -- at the risk of mentioning something that might have been in our old World Affairs sub-forum -- of the recent headline**, "Gosport hospital deaths: Prescribed painkillers 'shortened 456 lives'," when what had happened was that those 456 had been killed. After all, what are murders, or even massacres, if they are not the shortening of the victims' lives.

Lack of consent lies at the heart of many crimes. It's what differentiates the proceeds of stealing from gifts. It's the crucial difference in some of the most serious crimes we have. We even have laws that state that certain people (due to age or mental infirmity) are not able to give consent to what is happening to them, so that even if they agree to something, the person doing that something is committing a criminal offence.

Pirating a book is doing something without the copyright owner's consent. That the person reading the pirated copy may not have bought the book if that was the only way of obtaining it is neither here nor there. They have done something that required consent and they have not recieved that consent. (After all, a thief does not have to come away from the scene of their crime with anything in order to have committed that crime. And it can still be attempted murder if no-one has had so much as a hair on their head damaged.)

It seems to me that, whatever the law says, we should use the words that are appropriate to what is happening... in this case taking something without permission, which is, in common parlance, theft. If nothing else, we should do this because "younger generations really don't view the internet in the same way as older generations". Isn't it the duty of us older generations to point out the reality of what is being done, rather than sugar coat it into benignity?


** - Yes, that is an actual headline.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I'm afraid the dollar will usually vote above 'doing the right thing'. If you can get it free, or cheaper, same quality, who's paying (quite a lot) for a book or anything else? It's human nature. It's the whole basis of commerce/economics really? The same product at a lower price?

Regarding music: there'a no way to get the music to a Rolling Stones song online. You can get a thousand guesses or approximations. But if you want the real music, you have to pay for it. They've got it sorted.

And there's no way to get a new genuine, say, Harris tweed jacket cut-price on the internet.

Anyway, the whole point of the internet is to make as much information free as possible, that used to be locked-up. The literary industry has to catch up. No use complaining. Life moves along. Imo

 

[Danny McG]

Regarding music: there'a no way to get the music to a Rolling Stones song online. You can get a thousand guesses or approximations. But if you want the real music, you have to pay for it. They've got it sorted

Correct!
I took this as a challenge and tried just now - there's a lot of near Jagger but no free real Jagger

 

[RJM Corbet]

Correct!
I took this as a challenge and tried just now - there's a lot of near Jagger but no free real Jagger

Jagger/Richards ... lol

 

[SilentRoamer]

@Ursa major I may be wrong - but it seems you interpreted my words as a moral stance in support of copyright infringement. Which isn't the case. Although I do differentiate between copyright infringement and theft, they are not the same and I feel the details do count - especially in an evolving digital world, you can say "well it's the same as theft" all you like but the law doesn't support your assertions and as theft is defined by legislation I have to respectfully disagree with your statements. Trying to "crackdown" on younger generations isn't going to work as they operate online differently than older generations do. The ubiquity of online streaming and torrent sites shows this quite plainly.

We need a re-education or a change in the model, but I don't see piracy as big of a problem as it is made out to be - I think the loss of actual sales would be minimal and there is an argument to be had for this drawing new readers - obtaining figures on this is nigh on impossible though so I don't take a stance either way in terms of fan/financial impact. Although the act of infringement itself is clearly violation of principles of fairness and decency.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm not sure about this. In the UK, theft is the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive. I think this would tick all those boxes, although there could be some (fairly weak) argument about the dishonesty.

My suspicion is that you would bring a civil action for infringement of copyright rather than a criminal one for theft, since the standard of proof is lower in civil cases (the balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt). Unless you particularly wanted to have the infringer branded as a criminal, it would be easier to recover the loss that way.

I may be wrong about this, and would welcome the thoughts of any other lawyers.

 

[Cathbad]

don't see piracy as big of a problem as it is made out to be - I think the loss of actual sales would be minimal

At the moment, maybe not. But the moment you stop fighting it, it will become a very serious problem.

 

[The Big Peat]

The libraries in my county to indeed have online lending of some books. I think it would greatly increase if it were used more. As was noted earlier in this thread, many books, especially ebooks, are very inexpensive. Often less than the price of a soda! So most people simply buy rather than use the e-library, and therefore the e-library is not greatly used.

I saw a fantastic twitter thread from an US librarian the other day that said very much the opposite. Apparent many publishers charge absurd amounts for Libraries to purchase ebook licences (also some very opaque pricing schemes), with the result that many books either aren't available, or aren't available in a quantity anywhere close to meeting demand.

Which then of course encourages piracy in two ways - the first being an exasperated response to a lack of availability, the second being how much easier people find it to justify immoral behaviour against those we believe immoral.